Contents

Speaker Bios

Karen Hyman

Karen Hyman has worked in public libraries, as a State Library Consultant, and as Executive Director of the South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative where she develops services for 600 member libraries. Her chief inspiration is her role as a library user which “clears the vision wonderfully.”

Karen’s 12-step Reinventing Your Library programs have been a feature at every Public Library Association Conference since 2000 and have been presented at library conferences, staff days and trustee workshops in 37 states/provinces in the US and Canada.

Publications that people remember include “What Makes a Project Work?” (American Libraries, April 2006); “Struggling in a One-Stop Home-Shopping World, or People Want What They Want When They Want It –-Don’t You?” in Library Networks in the New Millennium: Top Ten Trends, American Library Association, 2000; and “Customer Service and the Rule of 1965: Stalled on the Way to the New Millennium” in American Libraries, October 1999.

As a result of friends on many committees, Karen was the 1997 Librarian of the Year for the New Jersey Library Association and received their 2002 Library Service Award. She is the recipient of the 2003 Leadership Achievement Award from the ASCLA Division of the American Library Association.

George Needham

George Needham is Vice President for Member Services at OCLC, Inc., in Dublin, Ohio, a position he's held since March 1999. George's portfolio includes Members Council, WebJunction, governance issues, and the OCLC Library. He also contributes to the blog “It’s All Good.”

A librarian for thirty years, George has worked in a variety of settings: at three public libraries, as state librarian of Michigan, and in several library-related nonprofit organizations. He holds MLS and BA degrees from the University at Buffalo, New York, and has taken additional coursework at the Advanced Library Management Program at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University.

Because of the popularity (or notoriety) of the three major reports OCLC has made to the library community since 2004, George has given over 100 presentations in four countries during the last three years. The topics include the library environment, perceptions of libraries and information resources by Internet users, and other issues facing the profession.

His sole brush with non-library fame was as a two time champion on the TV quiz show Jeopardy!in 1994.

Joan Frye Williams

For more than 25 years, Joan Frye Williams has been a successful librarian, consultant, vendor, planner, trainer, evaluator, and user of library services. Since 1996, she has been an independent consultant specializing in innovation, technology, and the service needs and preferences of non-library "civilians."

Just to give you an idea of how long Joan has been interested in library issues: her first library job was as a junior page in 1964. Since then she has been continuously employed in the library field. Along the way she received an MLS from the University of California at Berkeley.

Her many clients include libraries of all types and sizes, library consortia, state library agencies, professional library associations, library boards, library vendors, and architects.

Joan is best known as an acute--and sometimes irreverent--observer of emerging library trends, issues, and practices. She is an internationally recognized library futurist and designer of innovative library services.

Jennifer Morris

Jennifer Morris has been executive director of the Pioneer Library System since 2000. Pioneer provides services to 42 public libraries in 4 counties of upstate New York. She has worked in academic libraries as well. In 2006 she served as the President of the New York Library Association, and has also chaired NYLA's Legislative Committee.

Pam Sandlian Smith

Tom Galante

Thomas W. Galante is the library director of Queens Library. Queens Library had support of $108 million for FY 2006, and employs more than 1,700 people at 63 public libraries.

Galante has served in senior management since 1987, including CFO and CIO. His leadership has driven Queens Library’s continued reputation as a national leader known for its innovative approach to delivering public library services. In fiscal 2006, Queens Library loaned 20.2 million items, one of the highest circulating libraries in the U.S. for more than a decade.

Mr. Galante holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from St. Bonaventure University, an MBA with distinction from Hofstra University, and an MLS from Queens College.

Maureen Sullivan

Stanley Wilder

Stanley Wilder is an Associate Dean at the River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester. He has also worked at Louisiana State University and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Stanley's primary interests are tracking the demographics of academic librarianship, and saying mean things about information literacy. He also has experience in reworking technical services workflows and organization, and helped manage change resulting from information technology. He has made mistakes in each of these experiences that he hopes to help you avoid!